Newly discovered officials of Sahura’s retinue

Abstract

In 1994, the Egyptian mission discovered four limestone blocks with first class relief decoration in the area to the north side of the upper part of the causeway of the pyramid complex of King Sahura at Abusir. These blocks were published and briefly described by Zahi Hawass and Miroslav Verner in 1996. Afterwards, they were fully published in 2009 by Tarek El Awady. One of the blocks of the 1994 season designated as SC/north/1994/02 was discovered and published; however, its lower part was completely missing and was not found. In 2019, the work under the direction of the author focused on the north-east part of the already discovered blocks from 1994. A number of fine white limestone fragments were unearthed. Among those recently discovered blocks, there was the lower edge of block SC/north/1994/02. The present paper deals with new information about the discovered group of officials of Sahura’s royal court, as well as opens a new discussion and analysis of those non-royal individuals who served the king during his lifetime.

Keywords

• old kingdom
• fifth dynasty
• sahura
• abusir
• causeway
• officials